The Standing of Psychoanalysis.

Abstract

Much of the early philosophic debate about psychoanalysis focused on one question: Is it possible in principle to test Freudian theory? Several philosophers have now argued that it is (Wisdom [1967] Glymour [19741; Griinbaum [1979]), and, at the moment, the issue appears to have been settled. More recently, some philosophers have begun to examine the clinical and experimental arguments in the Freudian literature (Griinbaum [1980], [1983]; Erwin [1981]; Neu [1977]). B. A. Farrell's book [1981] is likely to enhance this recent trend: it contains one of the first attempts by a philosopher to make a comprehensive assessment of the scientific standing of Freudian theory and therapy. Farrell is sceptical about many of Freud's views, but he does argue for some important favorable conclusions. If he is right, he has not only answered Popper [1962] and Nagel [1959] on the testability issue, but also those critics (e.g., Eysenck & Wilson [1973]; Wolpe [I981]; Rachman [1971]) who find no merit whatsoever in Freud's ideas. In some of his conclusions, Farrell employs a distinction between 'High' and 'Low' level Freudian theory, one that is analogous to the more traditional distinction between the Metapsychological and Nonmetapsychological hypotheses. He does not give any operational criterion for identifying the High Level hypotheses, but he does say that they give an account of the way the mind works as a whole (p. 37), and helps to explain the Low Level generalizations of the theory as well as the observable conduct of people. An exarfiple is: The mind contains mental elements, each of which has two aspects, an ideational presentation and an effective charge of energy. The Low Level theory contains at least some ground floor generalizations, such as: All young boys are sexually attracted to the mother and are sexually jealous of the father. Some Low Level generalizations, however, resemble the High Level type; they also contain theoretical concepts, such as 'repression' and 'regression,' and say something about the way the mind works. Consequently, it is not always clear exactly which hypotheses Farrell intends to include in each category. For most of his purposes, however, his distinction is clear enough. Using the High-Low Level distinction, Farrell reaches five favourable